Chapter 45
Daniel
I wanted to be that guy who didn’t have to be asked twice, who would devour her the second those words left her lips, but I was shocked. She kept catching me off guard.
I was trying to process her words—all of them. I thought she was talking about sex when we said we’d go slow, not about sharing her past with me.
She smiled at me, clearly amused at whatever my face was doing.
“Daniel?”
I grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her to me, crashing our lips together.
I ran my hand through her hair, groaning loudly when her tongue went over my bottom lip.
She threw her hands over my shoulders, and her sharp nails moved up and down my shoulder blades, threatening to hurt me in a way that felt like pure bliss. I wanted her to make me bleed.
Before I could have second thoughts about being too aggressive, she tilted her head to the side, deepening the kiss. She wasn’t a gentle kisser—neither was I.
I stood up, supporting her thighs so she could keep them around my waist, and carried her to my bedroom. I nearly dropped her when she bit my bottom lip. No one had ever made me feel so weak in the knees like this strangely perfect woman.
She let out a soft moan that had me thanking my luck we were already at the edge of the bed because my knees buckled at the sound. I put her down and pulled back, leaning my forehead on hers.
“We need to stop if you don’t want to—”
Her smile could have lit up the dark room. She nodded. “I need something to sleep in.”
I practically bolted into my walk-in closet and grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts with a drawstring.
“There’s an extra toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet.” My voice was so strained, I barely recognized it.
She walked up to me and took the clothes from my hand. “This is a process for me. Trusting you, I mean.” Taking a step back, she pulled off her t-shirt. My eyes went straight to her black lace bra.
When she pulled my shirt down on her, it almost reached her knees. She shimmied out of her jeans and pulled out her bra from the sleeve, all while standing in front of me, completely oblivious to my staring and labored breathing.
She frowned at the shorts and handed them back to me. “Why are you nervous? Or uncomfortable, I can’t tell.”
Get it together!
I decided to follow her lead and grabbed a pair of boxer shorts, except I didn’t really think it through. I took off my shirt and sweats and looked down at the boxers I had on, like an idiot. I would have to take them off to put the other ones on.
Get. It. Together.
Fine. She wants to get undressed in front of me? I can do that too.
I was a nervous wreck, a fucking hormonal teenager, and she looked completely relaxed and amused. She shook her head and walked past me to the bathroom, closing the door behind her and leaving me standing there like a fool.
I changed my boxers, cursing myself out at the sudden embarrassment of doing that in front of her. I had never been shy about being naked before, but Lydia was different. What if she had a fucking panic attack from looking at it? Wouldn’t that be a punch to the gut? And my ego. Fuck.
She walked out of the bathroom and sat on the corner of the bed. Her eyes flicked to my black sleep shorts before moving up my chest slowly and staying on my eyes. She was smirking. What the hell?
“Okay, Daniel, you need to stop.” She rolled both lips under her teeth, like she was trying not to laugh, and patted the bed next to her.
When I sat beside her, she turned to face me, folding one leg underneath her ass.
“I didn’t think it would bother you to see me change.
It’s basically what I wore at the hotel. ”
She thought it bothered me?
“It didn’t bother me, you’re fucking gorgeous. The hotel was different. I was checking you for injuries, I wasn’t thinking of what you looked like at the time.”
“Spit it out, then.”
“What?”
She sighed loudly and pulled up the covers on one side of the bed to lie down. I joined her, lying on my side, facing her.
“You’re clearly thinking of saying something. If you have questions about what happened, you can ask. If I don’t want to answer something, I’ll just say so.”
I pushed her hair behind her neck and kept my hand on her shoulder. Her skin was so soft. “I have a thousand questions about what happened, but not now.”
“Then what is it? I will always tell you what’s on my mind. I want you to do the same without worrying about how I’ll react.”
“Don’t you ever worry?”
She shrugged. “Not really. I worried at first with Becca, but this is who I am, what I’m like.
If people I want to be close to don’t react well to it, I don’t really want to be close to them.
I don’t want to worry about that kind of stuff anymore.
If I say something that makes you angry, be angry, or sad, or confused, or whatever.
No miscommunication that way, no misunderstandings. ”
I took a deep breath and exhaled loudly.
“I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time and every single thing you do makes it harder to keep my hands off of you.
Kissing you now was torture, watching you change into my shirt was torture, but I don’t want to stop.
I want to tear your clothes off and fuck you until we both pass out, and then make you breakfast in the morning with a cappuccino that will make you moan because it’s the best sound I’ve ever heard and I can only imagine what you’d sound like with my mouth all over you and me inside of you. ”
I expected her eyes to widen in shock, but she just smiled.
I felt relief surge through my entire body.
“I think we’ve established that we’re trying this out between us, right?
So far, you haven’t said anything that I wouldn’t expect from a man who wants to be with me.
Why are you so tense?” Her hand moved up from my chest to my neck.
She pushed her fingers into the back of my neck, moving them in slow circles that sent a blissful tingle down my spine.
“Because I’m worried I’ll push you away.”
Lydia moved her entire body closer to me and kissed the front of my neck softly, at the dip where the collarbones meet. She leaned her head on my chest and sighed.
“You won’t. If you do something that I don’t want, I’ll tell you. If I need you take a step back, I’ll tell you. Don’t tiptoe around me, Daniel. I’m not that easy to break.”
“I’ll try.” I pushed my fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp. Her body relaxed instantly. She felt good in my arms—she felt right.
Kernel was right, calling her an angel of death.
She was soft, small, and pale, with delicate features that made her look like an innocent, harmless woman.
Except those light gray eyes told a different story, her voice told a different story, the way she moved and carried herself…
they all came together to contradict the way she looked.
They showed fire, violence, and coldness that should scare anyone she aimed her sights on.
I loved it. I loved watching her eyes light up when Becca beat that guy or when I told her that the one she stabbed was dead.
The same eyes that softened when she looked at my sister or even at Kernel when she realized who he was.
I wanted to see her completely unravel and be herself around me.
She was right about me—I was walking on eggshells around her.
I wasn’t an aggressive guy with women I’d been with before, but I was perceptive, always adjusting my behavior to what I thought they needed.
Maybe it was time to behave the way I wanted and trust my woman to stop me and guide me when I veered off course from what she felt comfortable with.
My woman.